Page 32 - NYLJ Professional Excellence 2021

ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR FINALIST

MICHAEL HILLER

MANAGING PARTNER AT HILLER, PC

BY ANDREW DENNEY

ichael Hiller, the founder of the small Manhattan firm Enter Hiller. Three of the Lucerne residents filed suit to
Hiller PC, believes that many of his fellow attorneys block the relocation and Hiller took on their case on a Sat-
lose their passion for the profession once they start urday in October 2020.
Mcaring more about their paycheck than the people By that following Monday, Hiller succeeded in securing a
they represent. temporary restraining order that allowed his clients to stay
Hiller has been in practice for almost 30 years and still put as the case wound through the courts.
loves his job. His secret? He takes on causes he cares about, Hiller’s fight for the Lucerne residents put him up against
fighting for clients who are going against interests with deep Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Randy Mastro, who was former
pockets and first-class legal representation. Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s chief of staff and who represented the
“I became a lawyer because I wanted to use the law as an West Side Community Organization.
instrument … to better society,” Hiller told the Law Journal. Ultimately, the NIMBYs won—at least in terms of getting
“That’s why I do what I do. I want to help people improve the homeless men evicted from the Lucerne.
their lives. I want to help small businesses help themselves.” This past June, a mid-level appeals court said that the legal
In a recent case, Hiller went to the mat on behalf of a group challenge against the city’s plan to relocate the residents
of homeless men who were provided shelter at the Lucerne downtown was moot because the plaintiffs named in the
hotel in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. suit had found permanent housing.
In summer 2020—the first months of the COVID-19 pan- Including the plaintiffs, a substantial portion of the resi-
demic—the New York City government moved almost 300 men dents were able to secure permanent housing rather than
to the hotel at 79th Street and Amsterdam Avenue as part of return to city shelters. And about 50 of them found jobs,
an effort to ease crowding in the city’s homeless shelters. Hiller said.
This did not sit well with some residents of the well-to-do “Even though we were heavily outmanned and outgunned,
neighborhood. The Lucerne’s new denizens were accused of so to speak, we took the fight to them and we got a temporary
restraining order and we got a stay pending appeal and we
held the property open long enough so that over 150 men
“I BECAME A LAWYER BECAUSE I WANTED TO USE could get permanent housing,” Hiller said. “In my view each
THE LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT … TO BETTER SOCIETY,” one of those individuals, who was able to transition to per-
HILLER TOLD THE LAW JOURNAL. “THAT’S WHY manent housing, was able to have a life-altering experience.
I DO WHAT I DO. I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE IMPROVE A positive life-altering experience, I should say. That’s what
THEIR LIVES. I WANT TO HELP SMALL BUSINESSES the law should be about.”
Randy Zelin, a prominent criminal defense attorney based
HELP THEMSELVES.” on Long Island who has worked as co-counsel with Hiller on
a few cases, said Hiller is a “rare bird” in the profession who
loitering outside of the hotel, using illegal drugs in the streets wields an approachable, “down to Earth” style to lawyering
and harassing Upper West Siders. that’s free of condescension—an approach that he said can
A group called the West Side Community Organization, catch his adversaries flat-footed at the negotiating table and
or WestCo, put pressure on the city to move the men out of in the courtroom.
the hotel. The city acquiesced to the group’s demands and “He’s got this disarming way of talking to you, without any
made plans to transfer the Lucerne residents to a different level of arrogance,” Zelin said. “By the time you’ve realized
hotel in Manhattan’s Financial District. what happened, it’s too late and he’s gotten the best of you.”

LawJobs.com | Your hiring partner

30 October 2021 | Photo: Ryland West/ALM